Seems the events would give player feedback saying they were getting the same amount of experience, but in effect (under the hood) they were not. Pretty clear-cut manipulation to slow progression of players while actively attempting to prevent players from finding out. Why is that necessary?

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Quote from Bungie that basically seems to boil down to "Damn! You caught us. We'll change it now!":

"“Currently, XP will scale up when playing longer or fixed duration activities like Crucible competitive multiplayer matches and the Leviathan Raid, and XP will scale down when playing activities that can be quickly, repeatedly chained, like grinding Public Events. We are not happy with the results, and we’ve heard the same from the community.

Seems the events would give player feedback saying they were getting the same amount of experience, but I effect (under the hood) they were not. Pretty clear-cut manipulation to slow progression of players while actively attempting to prevent players from finding out. Why is that necessary?

Anyone read about this? Am I missing something about the story?

When you're level 20 filling the XP bar gets you a free Engram. Engram is a loot box with cosmetics. You can buy them for real money if you want to. They were deceptively slowing down how quickly people earned free loot boxes. Probably to try sell more of them for cash.

having worked for companies like this, I can tell you the worst part is being the guy that was told to flip the switch to screw the customer, and then be the guy that gets told to flip it off like the company planned as plan B

And people still believe that what I like to refer to as "inconvenience by design" that makes games less fun than they should be hasn't wormed its way into AAA B2P titles from the F2P world so that you'll buy instant relief from the bad design.

Inb4 the usual comments about no-lifers, reddit and YT sucking.

“That's how the madness of the world tries to colonize you: from the outside in, forcing you to live in its reality.” ― Jeff VanderMeer, Annihilation

Actually this wouldn't be Activision/Bliz's doing. This would wholly be on the shoulders of Ubisoft, as this was happening on consoles & PC both, and activision has nothing to do with the console versions.

Actually this wouldn't be Activision/Bliz's doing. This would wholly be on the shoulders of Ubisoft, as this was happening on consoles & PC both, and activision has nothing to do with the console versions.

Bungie is powerful enough to have controlled this themselves. Just a possibility..

Actually this wouldn't be Activision/Bliz's doing. This would wholly be on the shoulders of Ubisoft, as this was happening on consoles & PC both, and activision has nothing to do with the console versions.

Bungie is powerful enough to have controlled this themselves. Just a possibility..

And the quote about turning it off was from Bungie. It appears they designed how it actually works in implementation, at least, if not the overarching idea to throttle XP behind the scenes.

Actually this wouldn't be Activision/Bliz's doing. This would wholly be on the shoulders of Ubisoft, as this was happening on consoles & PC both, and activision has nothing to do with the console versions.

Bungie is powerful enough to have controlled this themselves. Just a possibility..

And the quote about turning it off was from Bungie. It appears they designed how it actually works in implementation, at least, if not the overarching idea to throttle XP behind the scenes.

Exactly, there's no way they could have turned it off so quickly otherwise without even needing any downtime.

What about the people that bought silver, then used silver to buy xp booster? The faster you gain xp, the more you get throttled, so people who used real money...basically got robbed?

It has been suggested that the XP throttling that Bungie have implemented is to help drive Microtransactions.

And we can only expect more of this garbage as more companies turn to the idea of games as a service. It saddens me to see great gaming companies I once respected turn from honest merchants into a bunch of Machiavellian bullies who just want to beat you up and take your milk money.

What about the people that bought silver, then used silver to buy xp booster? The faster you gain xp, the more you get throttled, so people who used real money...basically got robbed?

It has been suggested that the XP throttling that Bungie have implemented is to help drive Microtransactions.

Seems most assured that this was the overarching reasoning.

Thing is, a treadmill progression system with longer and longer XP requirements per engram would've earned some looks of disgust, but at least they would've been up front about it. Hiding it is deceptive, which is a whole new level of shitty for producers to take it.

I've been popping a bright engram about every 3 days, not including those you get for rewards. I have one exotic ship (Rose and Bone), 3 legendary ships, and 5 legendary speeders, a shirt-ton of shaders, and a few exotic weapon skins. I'm not unhappy with my progress in game considering my hours.

I'm not sure why they felt compelled to lie. That's disappointing. Progress is so fast in the game they should have just said, they're nerfing rates and fonts and stood by that.

When rewarding people through game play the pacing should feel right and that's how it should be balanced. Those little reward tidbits should drop often enough that you feel like your contribution matters, but not so often that they're boring. That's how they should balance xp gains and Bright Engram drops regardless whether they sell them or not.

When rewarding people through game play the pacing should feel right and that's how it should be balanced. Those little reward tidbits should drop often enough that you feel like your contribution matters, but not so often that they're boring. That's how they should balance xp gains and Bright Engram drops regardless whether they sell them or not.

I agree Torval, I just don't think developers or publishers seem very interested in balancing it in any way other than "push them to the store" anymore.

Do we really think it's a coincidence that it was done in the sequel, the first title to include those engram loot boxes (at least, I never remember the original title containing the loot boxes)? The sequel also changed shaders from a one-time unlock to a consumable. They then added those shaders to the engram loot boxes. No developer or publisher seems immune to what is quickly showing itself to be a deteriorating slide for the consumer-friendliness of video games, all under this guise of games as a service.

By the way, for those that don't play the game and are looking for the real outrage angle. It's about Fireteam Medallions, not just xp rates. Lowering XP rates and slowing Bright Engram drops means the hardcore competitive people that use FTMs will probably have more incentive to buy them. FTMs provide an xp boost but more importantly a boost to quality and frequency of legendary and exotic engrams. It's the tie from RMT to power in the game.